Miscellaneous News

Bellum_Romanum

Brigadier
Registered Member
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms that the airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course.
So, all those similar balloons, which been detected previously over Hawaii, Guam, CONUS in recent years on multiple occasions are all civilian airship. Ok
View attachment 106519
That's some lame ass b.s. of an excuse. If this was the case then why didn't the Chinese government or relevant agency in charge of this weather balloon thing to inform the higher ups that they have lost contact or control of the said balloon to avoid any mishap, perceived threat it would and is creating to countries especially to the country that's been eager and has targeted them with a bulls eye which is the United States of America.

This statement sort of embarrasses Chinese in two ways in my opinion. 1.) This excuse reinforces the negative impression about anything Chinese related tech and the fact that the Chinese side could not, did not inform all the proper channels (if this shit is indeed a weather balloon) which further weakens the trust on both sides and weakens China's image to the western world ready to vilify anything China.
2.) The Chinese government is irresponsible and therefore can't be trusted and this latest action once again just showcases China's "malign" intentions against the interest and now within the domestic domain/sovereignty of America.

If China's goal was to buy some time against American attacks this latest stunt, excuses, and piss poor of an explanation would not cut it. But if on the other hand, this so-called weather balloon is indeed a SPY Balloon and they are simply using a diplomatic double speak then I have no issue with the above statement. But I did read on another forum that American intelligence have been aware of these balloons entering American airspace but never made a stink about them until now. So the question he pondered is why now? This person supposedly worked in the U.S. Intelligence.
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
That's some lame ass b.s. of an excuse. If this was the case then why didn't the Chinese government or relevant agency in charge of this weather balloon thing to inform the higher ups that they have lost contact or control of the said balloon to avoid any mishap, perceived threat it would and is creating to countries especially to the country that's been eager and has targeted them with a bulls eye which is the United States of America.

This statement sort of embarrasses Chinese in two ways in my opinion. 1.) This excuse reinforces the negative impression about anything Chinese related tech and the fact that the Chinese side could not, did not inform all the proper channels (if this shit is indeed a weather balloon) which further weakens the trust on both sides and weakens China's image to the western world ready to vilify anything China.
2.) The Chinese government is irresponsible and therefore can't be trusted and this latest action once again just showcases China's "malign" intentions against the interest and now within the domestic domain/sovereignty of America.

If China's goal was to buy some time against American attacks this latest stunt, excuses, and piss poor of an explanation would not cut it. But if on the other hand, this so-called weather balloon is indeed a SPY Balloon and they are simply using a diplomatic double speak then I have no issue with the above statement. But I did read on another forum that American intelligence have been aware of these balloons entering American airspace but never made a stink about them until now. So the question he pondered is why now? This person supposedly worked in the U.S. Intelligence.

They needed an excuse to call off the Blinken meeting because they know they can’t get what they want?
 

Helius

Senior Member
Registered Member
ISR balloons would be much easier to shoot down since the sensors and other equipment they carry will have a significant metal content, so should give useable RCS for radar guided missiles to home in on. A civilian research balloon OTOH, will carry minimal equipment so would have a tiny RCS, have zero heat signature and have almost no Doppler effect. It will be rather hard to track or target.
Not that we're seriously entertaining 'ISR balloons' as a military platform in context (at least I hope not), ISR is a term of function, not of equipment type. A commercial GPS-enable webcam mounted on a balloon, which is absolutely rudimentary even by "civilian research balloon" standards can just as well qualify as 'ISR' as far as the kind of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance a commercially available GPS-enable webcam can accomplish.
 

Temstar

Brigadier
Registered Member
Correct me if I'm wrong but imaging radar and SAR do benefit from low altitude as power of the radar require increase with the square of distance. That's why Soviet ocean reconnaissance satellite had reactors since they needed a lot of power for the radar and to supply such power with solar panels would rapidly degrade their orbit due to drag since they have low orbits to decrease the altitude.

So if you do radar imaging from a balloon it follows you could shrink down the power of the radar even further? Rapid Cloud for example might be something that works on this principle:

ca4a-kaqzmiw8190206.jpg
 
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